sonnet: results 1–19 of 19

The birds I hear don't sound like opera, not

like flutes or piccolos at play. They sound

like birds. Sometimes the birds are all I've got.

There's nothing grand but wakefulness, the ground

I jump from; nothing but the shining air…

Tonight, lightening amps the A-frames,

tilts the drone of my fridge and A/C—

surrounded by the daily buzz,

wonder if I percolate to the same

watt-worn beat. Lights go out,

storm pruning the trees, dark kitchen

good for thinking how too many shallow

currents run me.

You croon like Johnny, and you look like June.

To hear your thrilling trill, to take my stress

for one more song, shy son, I'll trade the moon,

your husky voice is best, I do confess.

For ten days now, two luna moths remain

silk-winged and lavish as a double broach

pinned beneath the porch light of my cabin.

Two of them, patinaed that sea-glass green

of copper weather vanes nosing the wind,

the sun-lit green of rockweed, the lichen's

green scabbing-over of the bouldered shore…

Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear,

   To outward view, of blemish or of spot,

   Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot;

   Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear

Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,

   Or man, or woman.

I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs

   By the known rules of ancient liberty,

   When straight a barbarous noise environs me

   Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs …

Mine, as whom washed from spot of childbed taint

  Purification in the Old Law did save,

  And such as yet once more I trust to have

Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,

Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.

When I consider how my light is spent,

  Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

  And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

  My true account, lest He returning chide;

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

O solitude! If I must with thee dwell,

   Let it not be among the jumbled heap

   Of murky buildings;—climb with me the steep,

Nature's Observatory

Mr. Fix-It, you're no passkey Schneider,

eager to put your key in my Julie.

Oh, but say the word, my big star lucky —

I'll curtsey like a love-hungry spider.

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high-pilèd books, in charact'ry

Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain…

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;

There are four seasons in the mind of man:—

He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear

Takes in all beauty with an easy span…

Bright Star! would I were steadfast as thou art—

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite…

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface

In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd…

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds…

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.

What hours, O what black hours we have spent

This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!

I found a ball of grass among the hay

And progged it as I passed and went away;

And when I looked I fancied something stirred,

And turned again and hoped to catch the bird…

She learned later she'd lunched with a movie

star from Mexico. They'd almost exchanged

Ah! He didn't offer his S.U.V.,

didn't apologize for the deranged…